East Syracuse woman wins Florida house

Syracuse, NY -- If you're Sally Hughes and you live in East Syracuse, you might want to sit down before you check your phone messages tonight.

Hughes won the house Fuccillo dealership gave away Wednesday evening. She was one of about 10,000 people who filled out an entry form, said Billy Fuccillo moments before Syracuse school teacher Tracie Baggett pulled Hughes' entry from a giant box of entries.

Afterward, Fuccillo went to an office at the Erie Boulevard dealership to call Hughes. She wasn't home so he left a message telling her she had won a home in Cape Coral, Fla., and a new car. Combined, the three-bedroom house and car have a value of about $150,000.

Fuccillo said that he bought the house in Cape Coral while he was in Florida buying a new dealership. That new Kia dealership will be open in September, he said.

The house would be available for Hughes right away, he said, or she could come down when he was there in September.

Each June Fuccillo has saturated airwaves and other media with ads for his expanding range of cars. This years "Huge-a-thon" resulted in about 1,600 car sales, he said, about 850 Hyundais and 725 to 750 Kia's at Fucillo's dealership in Clay.

Fuccillo said that the cars customers traded in during the sale indicated to him that the economy has not yet recovered. Many cars that were traded had more than 100,000 miles. "People needed to trade," he said.